Some lawmakers want to rethink the politically poisonous issue of redistricting

By Patricia Kilday Hart, Houston Chronicle columnist

Updated
2:57 am CST, Friday, December 9, 2011

The Greek mythological king Sisyphus spent eternity in the grueling task of rolling a huge boulder up a steep hill, condemned to forever lose control and repeat the exercise. This was apparently someone's idea of hell — having to perform an unending, unproductive task doomed to repetitive failure.

You can understand why Sisyphus leapt to my mind this week, when I learned that some state lawmakers — unhappy with maps drawn by a federal judicial panel for the Texas Legislature and congressional delegation — want to revisit the politically poisonous issue of redistricting when they reconvene in 2013.

So they can try to push that boulder up the hill once again.

We all learned in school that redistricting is the process by which electoral districts are reapportioned so that votes all count more or less the same. Here's a much simpler, perhaps truer, definition: Redistricting is when politicians get to choose their voters. It's also a cottage industry that provides a dependable source of income for lawyers and political consultants.

The painful exercise is supposed to happen once a decade, upon completion of a new census, to equally distribute voters amongst our representatives. It's become a massive computer game in which each political party seeks to obliterate the opposition.

This year's maps are just beginning to wind their way through the courts, but it seems nobody's happy. Both Republicans and African American lawmakers in the Texas House don't like the boundaries of their districts. And Attorney General Greg Abbott filed a scathing appeal, insulting the very federal judiciary that will make a final decision.

Political junkies will no doubt recall that the Texas Legislature drew maps in 2001, and then again in 2003. Egged on by former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, lawmakers thought the new GOP majority in the Texas House could engineer districts to elect more Republicans.

Texas Democrats, to the delight of late-night comedians, fled the state to thwart the Hammer, as DeLay was known then. Their gambit failed, but federal courts later decided that Republicans had overreached. Redistricting might be a computer game, but there are rules — specifically the Voting Rights Act.

A decade later, hostilities have renewed. But a few sensible Texas lawmakers want relief from boulder-rolling duties. Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, has attempted for several sessions to pass a law giving the redistricting task to a bipartisan commission of citizens. (Privately, lots of state leaders will say it's a sensible plan, but won't say so out loud.) Recently though, Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, sent a letter to Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst asking him to appoint a committee to study the idea.

“Despite the best of intentions, the Legislature gravitates to self-interest,” Carona told me this week. “When your objective is to protect incumbents and political parties, you don't get the best outcome.”

Eleven states have nonpartisan or bipartisan commissions to draw political districts.Two others — Ohio and Arkansas — give the task to a panel of elected officials.

Still, when he heard that some lawmakers wanted to spend even more time on the issue — hours and energy that could be spent on pressing state issues like education, water and transportation — Carona decided the bipartisan commission was worth study.

““We ought to be out there doing what's best for the voters at large,” he said.

Carona, it seems, wants Texas lawmakers to put aside self-interest and put the voters first. He hasn't heard back from Dewhurst. I fear Carona is taking on a second boulder.